I hope this is the right section for this. I just bought a V5 and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. In the interim, I want to go ahead and snatch up my batteries/charger. I have done a little reading, but wanted to ask a couple of specific questions on ECF.

I am trying to stay under $10 per battery and want to find out some information on the following aspects of the batteries as well as get some suggestions on what everyone else uses.

IMR?
Protected vs. unprotected?
High drain?

I would like something over 2000mAh since I vape very heavy and want to make sure I'm not buying something that will start a fire/kill my family in our sleep. Brand recommendations very welcome. Thanks to all!

I understand wanting to save money in todays economy. I was recently out of work for two months and I'm still struggling financially. However, batteries and a charger are not where you want to be cutting back and risk losing quality and safety. Batteries and chargers are not created equal, and you usually get exactly what you pay for. Batteries and a charger are the most important gear choices you will ever make in vaping. Whatever you choose you will be using on a daily basis for over a year, so choose quality and safety over saving a few bucks now. Please read the blog links below.

There are three classes of batteries available to use as vapers: IMR, hybrids, and protected ICR.

IMR - also known as safer-chemistry, high-drain, unprotected, and Li-Mn batteries. Choose these for almost any application and you can't go wrong. These are recommended for regulated mods (VV/VW) because of their high-drain ability. The red AW IMR batteries are suggested within this class. WHY HIGH DRAIN BATTERIES?

Hybrid - same capabilities as the IMR's. These often will have additional mAh capacity for longer use between charges. Panasonic, Orbtronic, Sanyo, Samsung, and Sony offer excellent choices in this class.

Protected ICR (li-ion) - these use a volatile (flamable) battery chemistry and therefore require a protection circuit built into the battery. These provide the most battery run time of the three classes, but due to the attributes of the other two class of batteries are not often recommended any longer. These should not be used in high drain applications, such as regulated mods, mechanical mods using a Kick, or with RBA's.

* Using sub-ohm coils in an RBA/RDA attachment requires special high drain batteries which have an amp rating of over 10 amps continuous discharge rate. If you are not running sub-ohm coils, you do not need one of these higher amp batteries.

I have a list of recommended high-drain, safe-chemistry batteries in the below link. Any of these batteries are applicable to use in your Vamo.

After doing CONSIDERABLE research in the flashlight forums among others, I have come to the conclusion that the efest batteries are just as good if not better than the aw brands. Note that the IMR style batteries are inherently safe and so yo do not need protected batteries.

I've got both 18350 flats and button tops and they both work just fine in my Vamo V5. Just make sure you switch to RMS mode instead of Mean mode. Do that by holding the left button for about 10 seconds. Otherwise it is an incredibly hot vape, even at low voltage/wattage.